I use a trailer winch - the sort of thing used to pull a boat onto the trailer.
Mine came with 5m of 5mm HT cable which was way too short but the spool had plenty of room on it so I got the local wire rope supplier to reuse the hook on the end and replace the cable with a 12m length. I think the cable is rated at just over 1 tonne.
The original 5m length came in very handy making up safety wires to go across the guy adjusters.
5:1 ratio on the crank and a good solid pawl to lock it in any position it works great - I just took my 3m mill down this afternoon for its 6 monthly check (only 2 months late!!) - it took less than 15 minutes on my own to let down 250kg of tower and mill and position it on the stand.
Everything was clean after generating nearly 250kw/hr this last session:-) Just got to remove the dissected flies from the leading edge and rebalance the blades as I didn't do a very good job a year ago.
Robin - Down Under (or are you Up Over)
